


Offerings

by hbomba



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Franky POV, Fridget
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 19:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17945582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hbomba/pseuds/hbomba
Summary: Franky deals with the consequences of That Horrible Thing That She Did.





	Offerings

**Author's Note:**

> Writing a little Franky POV this time around. Hope you enjoy! xo

Love without sacrifice is like theft―Nassim Nicholas Taleb  
__

Franky Doyle believed in sacrifices. She had given up more in her life than anyone she knew but she knew that didn’t make her special. However, she saw sacrifices for what they were--an end to a means.

She loved Bridget, fuck did she ever, Ms. Bridget Westfall, the woman that tamed Francesca Doyle--what a laugh. Franky was as fucked up as ever, pushing Bridget away, running away from her feelings, and hiding in her cell when Bridget wanted to talk it out. Franky thought she was through with going it alone and then the handcuffs were closing around her wrists again and the choice seemed out of her hands.

She was on her own because that’s how Franky had always been. It was a decision she’d made years ago. There was no way to hurt a person who didn’t care and Franky was an anarchist of love. She’d never let herself feel it before Bridget or trusted another woman to love her the way she should have been loved from the start: unconditionally. Because, after all, she, herself, was sacrificed by her own father to her mother. 

When Bridget had pushed her about her mother, Franky had cracked. She’d stuffed those memories so far down, hid them so deep, that unearthing them unleashed something in her. When she screamed that she killed Meg Jackson in the tiny office of the beautiful forensic psychologist, she regretted it instantly. She was cooked if Bridget reported her but she didn’t, she kept the inmate’s secret, teaching Franky that she could trust her.

And from that trust, love was born. After the initial sessions where Franky did her best to feel Bridget out (and up), Franky began to look forward to her sessions each week. She felt Bridget’s compassion and interest in her intensely and strived to improve. They talked about her future and for the first time in years, Franky had hope. 

When she was released, Franky could not believe her luck. Bridget had remembered what she’d said in her appointment all that time ago and there she was, hot girl with a hot car, waiting to kiss her and drive her off into the sunset. 

That’s why this sacrifice was the most difficult of all. 

When the photos of her and Bridget appeared, she knew it was Mike. It was a threat and she took it deadly serious. She started shutting down, internalizing, and pulling away from Bridget. The psychologist had already been forced to resign once because of her association with Franky and she swore she never fuck up the blonde’s life like that again. 

After she burned the photos, she made love to Bridget and when sleep wouldn’t come she watched her lover sleep instead. Bridget, with her short blonde hair, messed from the throes of passion, thin lips, still red from their kisses, and her regal features held Franky rapt in the moonlight. She took beautiful to a whole new level. 

When the detectives came to arrest her, Franky felt the trap door fall out from below her and it was a freefall all the way to Wentworth. She was empty and numb and nothing she could do could make it right. At intake, the humiliations she never thought she’d have to suffer again were a feature of her second tour of Wentworth. 

She choked on her own tears during the stripsearch as they checked her orifices and wondered how long it would be until Bridget came bursting through the doors of the intake office.True to form, she was there almost immediately, peering into the office, confused and bewildered. She knew they couldn’t be seen together, she knew they were right back under the microscope, and when Vera diverted Bridget from the office she knew what she was on her own again. 

Some sacrifices were more practical than others. 

Franky was sick over the worry she’d caused Bridget already and she was arrested a mere two hours ago. There was no time to explain to her what had gone on or why she hadn’t told her about Mike stalking her and even if there were Franky wouldn’t have. As many therapy sessions as Franky had, there were some inalienable truths, things that seemed written in her DNA, like cooking and the fact that Franky didn’t explain herself. She’d share a tidbit here or there but for the most part Francesca Doyle was a closed book.

She had one reader, though, that picked up the pen and wrote in her margins, highlighting her strengths, cheering her on, and loving her like she deserved to be loved. Bridget loved her new-old book, with its tattered covers and dog-eared pages, she peered at the pages trying to understand the words some days but others she understood perfectly and those days were magic for Franky.

She’d never been loved the way Bridget loved her. Sure, she was always desired by the women she slept with but what qualified as love for the others was nothing like what Bridget showed her on a daily basis. There was a wholesomeness about her love and that coupled with Bridget’s openness never failed to soothe her.

Sacrificing their intimacy to hide things from her was painful but pushing away the one person that could make her feel better was agony.

But Bridget was persistent--a lot more than Franky was expecting, she had to admit--and each time she rebuffed the woman she loved more forcefully, she came back. Until Franky did something so vile the shame kept her from looking in the mirror for a week. She had injured Bridget and herself in one fell swoop. 

Bridget was the only person she trusted to fix things when they were broken and she knew that was impossible now. She lashed out and regretted every ugly second of it. Every time she touched her in anger, every time she kissed her with rage in her voice, every time she howled for Franky to stop. But most of all she hated who she became in that moment. A crim. The one thing she never really was, but two tours of Wentworth had shown Franky her own true colors and it broke her heart. And she was sure she’d broken Bridget’s as well. Trust was an investment, if anyone knew that, Franky did, and she had failed to protect it.

She wondered now if every time they had a disagreement if Bridget would worry about angering her. She wondered if it would affect the gentle way Bridget held her or if she would ever hold her again. She’d failed so many times in her life but this one stung. 

She was working toward redemption for her time inside, who she became there was just as bad as what she did to get put in Wentworth. Bridget was so kind and understanding and though, they were no longer in a doctor-patient relationship, the trust they built during that time persevered. But now she was sure she’d fucked it up for good.

Sacrifices were part of life, but Franky had finally found the one thing that she wasn’t willing to part with. Bridget had never given up on her, not even when a ferocious anger bubbled beneath the surface and rage was the kindest feeling she entertained. She loved her through the arrest and the lying and really, being with Bridget was a dream. Sure, sometimes being with someone so perceptive was irritating, but never once did Franky find it any more annoying than bad habits of lovers from her past. 

It had been a week and a half since That Horrible Thing That She Did and Franky had only passed Bridget in the halls once since then, with the stolen shifter jammed up her sleeve. She tried to apologize with her eyes when all she really wanted to do was to beg for forgiveness and Franky Doyle didn’t beg for anything.

She was still focused on her escape plan when Bridget caught her with her swipe card and they came face to face for the first time since That Horrible Thing That She Did. Her anger surprised Franky, not because she didn’t deserve it, but because she was used to a more calm and content Bridget than the one in front of her then. She knew it wasn’t about the swipe card so much as it was about the week before. 

And Franky’s shame was there on display, her puppy dog eyes welling with tears, unable to meet Bridget’s and when she did the floodgates opened for them both.

“I’m sorry, Gidge. I’m so fucking sorry,” Franky choked into the sleeve of her jumper, tentatively stepping closer to her.

“Franky…” Bridget held a hand up and warned her off.

“I love ya.” She shook her head. “And I just wanna make things right.”

She sighed. “It’s going to take some time.” 

Franky nodded, clenching her jaw. She closed her eyes and put her hands on her head. “I can’t believe I fucked this up.”

“We’re gonna be fine, baby.” 

Puffing out her cheeks as she exhaled, Franky turned to leave. “Gidge?” She asked with her back to Bridget.

“Yeah?”

Her back still to Bridget, Franky looked at the floor. “I think about you every day, and what we had,” her voice wavered, “and all I want is to come home to you.”

She opened the door without turning around and left Bridget’s office without another word. It physically hurt not to hold her, not to be near her, and it had only been a week and a half. If convicted, she’d be inside for another twenty-five years and she’d feel that pain for the rest of her life.

Back in her cell, she lay in bed with a book. To say she was reading would have been a bold-faced lie, she was staring at the pages but she couldn’t focus on the words. Instead, she thought about how Bridget had looked in her office, teary and angry, so very un-Bridget-like and she couldn’t help but to blame herself for this development, too.

Sacrifice wasn’t just Franky’s game, Bridget had given up more for Franky than anyone and Franky wasn’t blind to that. That’s why That Horrible Thing That She Did was so fucking awful. Bridget of all people didn’t deserve the disdain she served up when she delivered her files or being rebuffed every time they met in the halls or god forbid, the outright assault.

Franky lifted her head and slammed it back against the pillow. She was so disgusted with herself. She whipped her arm and threw the book at the wall. The fluttering sound was as satisfying as the loud crack of the book’s spine against the cinder block wall. The silence that followed, however, was scary and lonely.

Franky had gotten through life thus far by fighting, biting, and making things work when they were broken. Bridget had shown her she didn’t need to do it alone anymore but Franky had been unable to let old habits die. More than anything, she wanted for Bridget to come in her cell and take her away for a session. She wouldn’t say no this time, she wouldn’t push her away, and she’d never lay an angry hand on Bridget ever again.

But she didn’t come to her cell and Franky was alone again.

She remained focused on escaping and being with Bridget. Plotting and scheming and lying to get closer to the woman she thought about twenty-four-seven but she couldn’t even tell her friends about. It hurt to not think about Bridget just as much as it hurt to think about her, except there was an emptiness that ached constantly in the absence of her Gidget. 

When she watched her pack up the last of her things in her office, holding her for the first time since That Horrible Thing That She Did and ostensibly the last time, Franky felt sheer panic set in. She couldn’t be alone on the inside--not after her redemption by Bridget. For as rough as it was for her to learn how to live on the outside was after being at Wentworth, learning how to live on the inside again was even tougher.

Every night she dreamed of holding Bridget and every morning she woke up with a sore back from her shitty prison-issued mattress and empty arms. She remembered making love and laughing on the lounge together, being closer to her than she’d ever been with anyone in her entire life and then, like a dream, it was all over and she was back in the teal walls of Wentworth wondering what the fuck she did in her past lives to deserve this fate twice.


End file.
